Last chance to ban hunting, Blair warned

The government must legislate to ban foxhunting before the next election or lose all credibility on the issue, a senior Labour MP warned today.

Tony Banks, the former minister and animal rights campaigner, was speaking after reports that "senior ministers" are prepared to quit if the prime minister again retreats on promises to outlaw the practice this autumn.

As things stand the government has a narrow window of opportunity to get a new anti-hunting bill past opposition in the Lords before a likely election next spring.

This morning Mr Banks, a staunch opponent of hunting, warned that a failure to finally pass a bill - first promised by Labour in opposition seven years ago - would make it impossible to go into the election pledging to outlaw the sport.

He said: "If we're not careful this is the final chance - period. The issue has been hanging around now for so long that we'd have no credibility going into a third election promising to outlaw it.

"We are going to have to deal with this in this session [of parliament]."

The identities of the ministers who, according to today's Times, would quit as a point of principle over the failure to legislate remain a mystery, but Labour backbenchers are increasingly angry and frustrated with the government over the issue.

Growing frustration

After seven years of delays and defeat in enacting legislation, there is speculation in Westminster that the government might force a new bill through the Commons in one day during the two-week period at the beginning of September, before the party conference season.

It would then most likely be defeated in the Lords, where the government does not have a majority, but - because that would be the second Lords defeat in successive sessions of parliament - the government could then force the measure through using the Parliament Act, whereby the Commons can overrule peers.

According to arcane parliamentary procedure, as long as the defeat in the Lords came at least 30 days before the end of the parliamentary session, it could then be introduced via the Parliament Act. The current session of parliament is expected to end in mid-November, allowing the government, if it wishes, to go into the next election having enacted a hunting ban.

Such a move would act as a sop to Labour backbenchers disgruntled with the direction of the prime minister, since banning foxhunting is a totemic issue among many MPs.

A sign, albeit discreet, that this may be the case came before the summer recess, when the leader of the Commons, Peter Hain, only gave out parliamentary business for the first week in September, leaving conspiracy-minded MPs convinced that the bill could be introduced in one day in the second week, most likely September 14.

Mr Hain himself has come out strongly against hunting, telling MPs at the final business questions of parliament that "this barbaric practice has to be ended".

More explicitly, he told another MP: "'This is what the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs want and undoubtedly there is a large majority of the country that expects this parliament to do so and to do so before the general election."

He hinted to MPs: "I think you will be encouraged when I do make the announcement in the way we intend to pursue this."

Before the summer recess, more than 250 MPs signed an early day motion demanding a ban.

The government's last attempt to tackle the controversial issue in July 2003 saw it introduce a bill which would have allowed some licensed foxhunting to continue. Labour MPs voted to turn this into a total ban, after five hours of intense Commons debate, by 362 votes to 154.

But the amended bill was blocked by the Lords in October as peers voted in favour of a licensing regime for foxhunting, stag hunting and hare coursing, sending the bill back to the Commons where it ran out of time.